02 August 2011 3:32 PM

Airports, you might think, are not the most obvious places in which to find creative inspiration. With the constant bing-bong of passenger announcements from the tannoy, the snaking queues for a cup of franchise coffee, and the general snarling and growling that goes on around the security scanners as yet another fractious traveller is asked to remove their shoes, most terminals are a hive of noise, hurry and occasional confusion.

But this has not stopped London Heathrow from appointing novelist Tony Parsons as its 'writer-in-residence'. As of tomorrow, and for the next week (August 3-9), the author of Man And Boy and One For My Baby will be holed up in the world’s busiest airport, trying to wring literary gold from its teeming hallways and crowded duty-free zones.

Specifically, he will be roaming between the gates, speaking to real passengers and airport staff – including pilots, air traffic controllers and immigration officers – and hoping that their tales provide sufficient spark for fictional fables of arrival and departure.

Presumably Parsons is convinced that this uber-hectic environment will prove fertile ground – as the fruits of his labour are already scheduled to be published as Departures: Seven Stories From Heathrow in October. And if he looks confident enough in the publicity photos (see above), he also sounds distinctly self-assured in his own words.

'Airports are places of extreme emotion, where people come and go and experiences begin and end,' he says, perhaps twirling a pen in one hand. 'Often when we travel, we find ourselves in such a hurry to get to our end destination that we fail to appreciate the individual stories and moments happening before us. It feels like an incredible opportunity to live at Heathrow and write about the people whose lives are touched by it.'

Of course, Heathrow has form on this score. In 2009, the airport appointed Alain de Botton as its writer-in-residence. The philosopher spent a week at a desk in Terminal 5, talking to passengers – before producing A Week At The Airport: A Heathrow Diary.

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